The object of this restlessness that puzzles you
is solitude: a loneliness for loneliness,
a wistfulness for restlessness,
a straining back to what comes naturally –
the way things used to be
when I had only me.

I miss myself madly.
I long to be romantically involved
with myself again, like old times:
dependent only upon independence,
demanding only temptation.

I cannot locate the source of the disturbance
that has blossomed between us.
It seems, possibly, real… untranslatable.
At best it can be mumbled incoherently,
requiring a different language:
one that you can only feel.
And a different form of currency,
in which I lack sufficient means.

Nevertheless, a situation has arisen
that demands my complete attention:
You persevered beyond the numbness,
even after your jaw cramped, to induce
a state of constant sickly anticipation
of something sweet: an impatience to wallow again
in a mutually tacit sense of wonder, to swoon
into a different kind of loneliness,
from which I restlessly await recovery
and the long snarled return to a serene apathy.

A long time ago I made a decision
to become a failure. It wasn’t
as easy as I thought: browsing through life
from one distraction to the next, while waiting
for the last lost moment to become unseizable.
As if there were some fundamental honesty
to not striving: There wasn’t.
I suspected it all along.

There are no levees capable
of withstanding the torrents of distraction
that surge through my mind. Tender
resentments, useless trivia and tired lusts
are carried along like debris on a swollen river,
from which, very occasionally, a lucid thought
emerges – only to be sucked back down
into the sewage of pettiness and vanity.